| Year End | 31 December |
| Accounts Published | April |
| Annual General Meeting | June |
| Dividend Paid | May |
About us
Find out more about our investment objective, approach, portfolio and performance.
Latest news
Update from our investment manager, Sebastiaan Berger – 2 May 2022
If there are two things that I have in my DNA, they are positivism and looking at a brighter future instead of looking back.
After another difficult year, during which the country faced extremely challenging conditions, by November 2021 Cuba had demonstrated to the world that its home-grown Abdala and Soberana 2 vaccines were indeed effective in the fight against Covid-19 and that its country-wide vaccination program had been diligently implemented and resulted in rapidly falling numbers of new cases and fatalities, and once again these qualities took the upper hand and I thought that the Cuban economy had hit bottom and would begin rising to a brighter future.
But at the start of Cuba's high tourism season, just as Cuba was reopening its international borders and welcoming international travellers back to the island, the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus emerged in South Africa and rapidly spread throughout the world, causing a new wave of restrictive travel measures aimed at slowing the swift pace of infections produced by the new variant. These measures resulted in many travel cancellations from Canada (historically Cuba's most important source of tourists during the very important period from December to April each year). Despite this obvious setback, tourist numbers began to improve, with Russia joining Canada as one of the principal source markets. All of our hotels re-opened, occupancy levels and profitability started to increase, and I hoped that Cuba's precarious liquidity position would soon start to show signs of improvement!
However, once again positive momentum was short-lived. When on 24 February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine, all Russian (and Ukrainian) travel came to an abrupt halt and Cuba once again found itself facing the prospect of a difficult high season.
Spotlight on the portfolio
CEIBA has a 40% holding in the Cuban joint venture company TosCuba S.A., which is constructing the 401-room Meliã Trinidad Península Hotel. This hotel is situated on the south coast of Cuba close to the historic city of Trinidad and will be the first modern international-standard beach resort hotel in the area.
Completion of the construction process is expected to take place during 2022, with a soft opening scheduled for the first quarter of 2023 and the official launch of the hotel during Cuba’s international Tourism Fair in May 2023. For more information, please watch the short video below.
Key People
Sebastiaan Berger
Lead Manager
Sebastiaan A.C. Berger is a Dutch trained lawyer who has resided in Cuba since 1996. He has been assisting foreign investors in Cuba since 1996, first as founder of the Havana office of an international law firm, then as a founding partner of Berger, Young and Associates (1998). He has been the lead investment manager of CEIBA Investments Limited and Representative of the Havana Office of CEIBA Property Corporation Ltd. (CEIBA) since 2002.
Stephen Coltman
Senior Investment Manager
Stephen Coltman is a Senior Investment Manager within the Alternative Investment Strategies division at abrdn. Stephen has extensive experience investing across both public and private markets and spent the majority of his formative years based in Latin America, including a 3 year period in Cuba during the 90s. Stephen is a CFA charterholder.*
* CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are trademarks owned by CFA Institute
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Sebastiaan Berger
Lead Manager
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Stephen Coltman
Senior Investment Manager
Stephen Coltman is a Senior Investment Manager within the Alternative Investment Strategies division at abrdn. Stephen has extensive experience investing across both public and private markets and spent the majority of his formative years based in Latin America, including a 3 year period in Cuba during the 90s. Stephen is a CFA charterholder.*
* CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are trademarks owned by CFA Institute
John Herring
Chairman
John qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982. In 1986, John joined the corporate finance department of Kleinwort Benson, where he was involved in the IPOs on the LSE for several companies. In 1996 he established his own private equity advisory business and joined the boards of a number of public and private companies including JD Wetherspoon plc where he became deputy chairman and served as a non-executive director for 14 years. He is currently the non-executive chairman of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group Limited. John acts as a Consultant to Northview Investment Fund Limited which currently owns 32,150,544 Ordinary Shares representing 29.86 per cent. of the existing issued share capital of the Company.
Trevor Bowen
Non-Executive Director
Experienced director with over 30 years’ experience spanning across a variety of industries. Trevor spent 11 years as a partner of KPMG and 17 years managing U2 and other artists. Trevor has acted as a non-executive director on a number of boards, most notably a director on the board of Ulster Bank for 9 years, which included 6 years as the chairman of the Banks audit committee. He is an Irish national and a Qualified Chartered Accountant.
Keith Corbin
Non-Executive Director
Principal and executive chairman of Nerine International Holdings Limited, a network of trust and fiduciary services companies with operations in Guernsey, British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, India, and Switzerland and serves as a director of a number of regulated financial services companies. He is also the senior independent non-executive director of HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited, a FTSE 250 company. Keith is an Associate of Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB) and a Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
Peter Cornell
Senior Independent Director
Peter is a founding partner of Metric Capital, a pan-European special situations fund. He is a non-executive Director of F&C Commercial Property Trust Limited and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Madrid Business School. Previously he was Global Managing Partner of Clifford Chance until 2006. During his 36 year tenure with Clifford Chance his roles included managing partner for Spain and Continental Europe. He then became managing director of Terra Firma, a European private equity firm until 2011. Peter holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and History.
Colin Kingsnorth
Non-Executive Director
Colin is a partner and director of Laxey Partners Limited, a UK-based active value investment firm focusing on closed-end funds and property investments. Colin previously worked for Robert Fleming Asset Management, headed the investment trust research at Olliff & Partners and managed the emerging markets fund of Buchanan Partners Limited. In 1995, Colin co-founded Regent Kingpin Capital Management. In 1997, he founded Laxey Partners Ltd with Andrew Pegge. Since then Laxey Partners Ltd has become a prominent active value investor focusing on closed-end funds and property investments. Colin holds a BSc in Economics and is a CFA Charterholder.
Jemma Freeman
Non-Executive Director
Jemma Freeman is the Executive Chairman of Hunters & Frankau Limited, the appointed exclusive distributor for Habanos S.A.'s cigar portfolio in the United Kingdom having joined the business in 2002. Previously, Jemma was a Strategic Planner in the advertising industry. She currently holds the position of Vice Chair of ITPAC, an Advisory Council established to support the tobacco trade in the UK. Jemma is also a Trustee of a Cancer charity focused on immunotherapy research.
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John Herring
Chairman
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Trevor Bowen
Non-Executive Director
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Keith Corbin
Non-Executive Director
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Peter Cornell
Senior Independent Director
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Colin Kingsnorth
Non-Executive Director
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Jemma Freeman
Non-Executive Director
Jemma Freeman is the Executive Chairman of Hunters & Frankau Limited, the appointed exclusive distributor for Habanos S.A.'s cigar portfolio in the United Kingdom having joined the business in 2002. Previously, Jemma was a Strategic Planner in the advertising industry. She currently holds the position of Vice Chair of ITPAC, an Advisory Council established to support the tobacco trade in the UK. Jemma is also a Trustee of a Cancer charity focused on immunotherapy research.
Financial calendar
Company Details
CEIBA Investments Limited
Registered Office:
Dorey Court,
Admiral Park,
St Peter Port
Guernsey
GY1 2HT
The Company was incorporated in Guernsey as a non-cellular company limited by shares on 10 October 1995 under registration number 30083. It was admitted to the Specialist Fund Segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange on 22 October 2018.
The Company is a Registered Closed-ended Collective Scheme pursuant to The Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1987, as amended, and the Registered Collective Investment Schemes Rules 2015 issued by the Commission. The Company operates under the Companies Law and ordinances and regulations made thereunder.
The Company is a country fund with a primary focus on Cuban real estate assets.
The Company will seek to deliver the investment objective primarily through investment in, and management of, a portfolio of Cuban real estate assets, with a focus on the tourism-related and commercial property sectors. Cuban real estate assets may also include infrastructure, industrial, retail, logistics, residential and mixed-use assets (including development projects). The Company may also invest in any type of financial instrument or facility secured by Cuba related cash flows or other receivables.
In addition, subject to the investment restrictions set out below, the Company may invest in other Cuba-related businesses, where such are considered by the Investment Manager to be complementary to the Company’s core portfolio (“Other Cuban Assets”). Other Cuban Assets may include, but are not limited to, Cuba related businesses in the construction or construction supply, logistics, energy, technology, and light or heavy industrial sectors.
Investments may be made through equity, debt or a combination of both.